I Want to be Your Superintendent

Recently the Jefferson County Board of Education selected Ray and Associates, a national executive search film, to recruit applicants for the superintendent position. I envision eager superintendent-wannabes Googling Jefferson County Schools and after a brief read of the headlines about the board, mumbling "fat chance," and quickly moving on to catch-up on their emails.

In reality, there will probably be numerous candidates for the job. Until, November, the school district had an excellent reputation - strong student achievement, a nationally recognized superintendent, nationally recognized educational technology program, support of towns and the county.

When the board members interviewed the search firms, Ken Witt mentioned more than once his desire for a "non-traditional" interview with the superintendent candidates. He mentioned using scenarios. I heard snickers from the audience. Apparently, they know scenario-driven interviews are not non-traditional. However, it did make me think about what questions would be asked of applicants, and what answers could be given that could make the community happy and make Ken Witt want to hire them.

Question: As superintendent, what would be one of the most important things you could do?

Answer: Listen to the community

This answer wouldn't win you many points with Kenny. After 13,000 people recently submitted their feedback to the board through an online survey about budget priorities, he wasted no time disparaging the survey results, stating that he felt people took the survey "two or three times." He hates that the community does not agree with his agenda, so he wants to quiet their voices by discrediting the survey. Survey respondents, gave a thumbs down to more charter schools, reducing school fees and increase spending on gifted students - all supported by Witt, Newkirk and Williams.

Any applicants for the Jeffco superintendent job are going to have interesting interviews. Let's just hope the interviews are not behind closed doors. Oh yes, Kenny hates transparency too. He hired an attorney behind closed doors.

Follow the Money

There's big money behind the takeover of education in Colorado.  Just look at the DougCo school board races and the move to privatize Douglas County schools. It starts out slowly and secretly and then it spreads. And, it has spread to Jefferson County.
 
Much of the money is hidden behind  campaign contributions funneled through 501(c)4  groups like Jeffco Students First Action, which worked to get Ken Witt, John Newkirk and Julie Williams elected.

 "The group received its funding from Jeffco Students First Action, a group that has been critical of district policies but which itself doesn’t have to report its contributors." ChalkBeat, 11/7/2013

The head of the Jeffco Students First, the parent group of Jeffco Students First Action, is Sheila Atwell. Who pays her salary? Who funds their work and their campaign contributions? Who paid for the high price law firm that filed their original paperwork with the Secretary of State's Office?

The paperwork was filed by a lawyer with Hackstaff Gessler in Denver. Does the name Scott Gessler ring a bell? To get that type of legal support you either need to have a lot of money, or connections, probably both. 

When Jeffco Students First suddenly appeared in Jefferson County, the group's website looked exactly like the website of Students First, a national organization founded by Michelle Rhee. Rhee was basically run out of her position as the chancellor of the Washington DC school system. She went on to get the support of large and well-funded conservative groups, like the Koch Brothers, to create Students First. While head of the D.C. schools, she was known at the "teacher terminator." She is also pro-voucher and pro-charter school.  Later, she was linked to a student test score cheating scandal.

Could it just be a coincidence that the two groups, the national conservative-funded Students First and Jeffco Students First, websites looked exactly alike and had matching content? Did they have matching donors?

Why does the Jefferson County group, and Atwell, hide campaign contributions, not only to Witt, Newkirk and Williams, but to Mapleton School Board's Jen Raiffie. Raiffie's donations were funneled through another group. (You do not want your children to act like Raiffie does. See here and here.)

It should be noted that Sheila Atwell is not a Jeffco schools parent.  Her children attend private school.

Colorado's Big Money
Witt, Newkirk and William's banker, Jeffco Students First, which has tried to stay in the shadows, also has ties to big Colorado money. During the campaign, those in the favored circle received this invitation:

Alex Cranberg, the energy millionaire and one of the hosts of this Jeffco Students First soiree, has a long history of influencing education.

"In Colorado, when a school voucher initiative he backed failed, he joined with others to create the Alliance for Choice in Education, a nonprofit group . . ." New York Times, 6/11/11

Follow the money and get the answers about Witt, Newkirk and Williams.  I fear they will reinforce my concern for Jeffco's children. Jeffco parents, its time to take back our school district, demand transparency from Jeffco Students First, Sheila Atwell, Attorney Brad Miller and the three board members.

Six Degrees of Brad Miller

Play Six Degrees of Brad Miller. We will start you off:

Jeffco School Board's new attorney Brad Miller, who was hired in a backroom deal, also owns a company called Charter School Solutions,  co-owner of the business is Denise Mund.  She has power over creating and approving new Charter schools. She spent approx.13 years running the division in the Colorado Dept of Education that oversees Charter Schools.

Brad Miller's brother-in law is Paul Lundeen, chairman of the State Board of Education, and candidate for the state legislature.  By all accounts, Miller has been able to secure some lucrative contracts dealing with Colorado education.

Here is a classic example of how Brad Miller's Charter School Solutions works.

 On May 2, 2013, Miller and Mund attended the Colorado Digital Board of Cooperative Eduction meeting. This group controls online learning.

At that meeting, Miller and Mund have a contract approved to be paid up to $10,000 a month for their services. Immediately after the contract is approved, Miller presents the board with a Conflict of Interest Policy, which they adopt?

The meeting continues, with Miller setting up the next meeting agenda and telling this board what they should be working on.  (He does the same with the Jeffco and Thompson School Districts). Looks like he is in control of yet another aspect of our educational system. Read it here.

http://www.cdboces.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/CD-BOCES-Bd-Mtg-Minutes-050213.pdf 

Smooth move, creating the Conflict of Interest policy, so you don't have a Conflict of Interest, and then you get to decide what the board will work on at future meetings. This sounds like a dangerous situation to me.

Recap:  Miller has the Jeffco contract for up to $7,000 a month, he has the Thompson School District contract with no financial constraints.He has the Digital Board's $10,000 a month contract.  According the the Loveland Reporter Herald, he represents an additional 20 Colorado school boards, including Falcon School District and 16 charter schools.
 
None of the contracts he has were put out to bid, they were secured through deals that were generally not done in the public eye. 

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE GIVING THIS MAN SO MUCH POWER OVER COLORADO KIDS' EDUCATION?   NOT TO MENTION HOW MUCH TAXPAYER MONEY HE IS RACKING IN!

May I See Your ID Please

When a teacher, a bus driver, a secretary goes to work for a school district they must submit their fingerprints and have a background investigation completed. When my 80 year old mother decided to volunteer at her grandchild’s school she had to use $20 of her own Social Security money to get a set of fingerprints to submit to the school.

When someone decides to run for the school board they simply fill out an application and create a half-truthful webpage (my apologies to those who are truthful). Being a school board member requires no fingerprints, no background investigation. There could be a six-year stint in Super Max in a board candidate's past and they really wouldn’t have to divulge that to the school district, or the voters.

A person is ineligible to run for a school director position if he or she has been convicted of committing a sexual offense against a child.1 Colo. Rev. Stat. § 22-31-107(5)(a). The statutes do not place an affirmative duty on school officials to fingerprint or conduct background checks of school board candidates. Instead, candidates must affirm under oath that they meet the qualifications of the office if elected. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1-4-501(1).

Hopefully, someone one would find out about criminals, but really how much do the voters honestly know about school board candidates. There is no official oversight of their qualifications and credential and no oversight of how they behave once they are elected. This is something I am going to complain loudly to my legislators about.

How much do we know about the three ultra-conservatives that just took over the Jeffco School Board and our children’s future?

A Word About LinkedIn

Mickey and Minnie Mouse have a profile on LinkedIn.  They are listed as leisure consultants who graduated from Walt Disney University.  This should serve as a word of caution about the LinkedIn profiles of Ken Witt and John Newkirk. In my opinion, they deserve some scrutiny.

Witt’s LinkedIn profile has changed several times since he crept into office. Immediately after the election, he created an interesting and somewhat misleading title for himself.

Witt is not an employee of the Jefferson County school district, but he loves this title:

In fact, I have been unable to find any verification that Witt is gainfully employed. His campaign website and his Facebook page say he is president of the Aabren Group. The Aabren Group is not listed with any Secretary of State’s office, there is no website for the company and no client list, noTaxID number. You can draw your own conclusions. Check out Witt, Newkirk and William's backgrounds for yourself and see if you think they are really qualified to be responsible for educating and providing for the well-being of 85,000 children and 14,000 employees.  Are they really two unemployed guys and a receptionist?

Learn more about Julie Williams and the  "I call them the Despicable" here. 
(Denver Post, 12/29/13) 

The Jefferson County Board of Education Policy BBBA simply states:

A candidate for the office of school director shall be a resident of the director district that will be represented, have been a registered elector and resident of the school district for at least 12 months. A person is ineligible to run for school director if he/she has been convicted of committing a sexual offense against a child.

It is important that the candidate be sincerely and honestly interested in serving the whole school district for the best interests of all children. Board members shall be nonpartisan in dealing with school matters. The Board does not wish to subordinate the education of children and youth to any partisan principle, group interest, or personal ambition.

The First 100 Days

The phrase “the First 100 Days” is often used to measure the accomplishments of the president during his first 100 days in office when his power is supposed to be at its peak. Let’s use that same measure in time to look at the accomplishment’s of Jeffco’s Board of Education since the 3 conservative board members took office.  Going forward, I shall refer to them at The Troika.  However, I’m searching for an appropriate title for the group. The 3to2ers comes to mind, the Twisted Trio, Koch Worshipers.  Feel free to suggest a name.

The idea for the First 100 Days topic came to mind when I reviewed a tape of the now legendary Board of Ed. meeting on Saturday, Feb. 8.  The day Ken Witt, Julie Williams and John Newkirk tried use their spiteful ways to shame Supt. Cindy Stevenson. During that meeting, Lesley Dhalkemper described some of the not-so-good works of The Troika. To paraphrase Ms. Dahlkemper, The Troika:

• -Hired an attorney, who has a giant conflict of interest, for themselves behind closed doors (using thousands of dollars in tax payer money)
• Violated the state’s open meeting law, which is designed to let you and I see what our elected officials are up to. (The Troika prefers to meet secretly)
• Approved nearly half a million dollars for a charter school with poor student achievement and questionable management skills (using taxpayer money)
• Pushed out a nationally recognized superintendent  (using taxpayer money)

This has all occurred in less than 100 days. What Dahlkemper did not get to include in her list is:

-With little facts or information, The Troika voted to reject a grant, which would be used to implement a state-mandated evaluation system for pre-school students. The evaluation system, using a program called TS Gold, would help parents receive early warning that their child needs additional education support. The program helps teachers understand how to help kids learn. The rejection of this program by The Troika, put the District, (and your kid’s school) in jeopardy of losing millions of dollars, losing the Colorado Preschool Program and violating state law. More about TS Gold here. (the Troika slightly amended their decision, while they try to figure out how to kill the TS GOLD system, and still get the millions from the state.)

-They approved another charter school, Cornerstone, that has no location, no marketing plan, no student enrollment.  No CEO would have approved their proposal.

-They lied to the Denver Post about their plans for the February 6^th Board Meeting. Really lying to the media!  Like they won’t notice.

- They worked with a behind-the-scenes group that provides them scripts for board meetings and advice about how to manipulate the meeting process including public comment. (Witt get tips on how to be rude. Would you let you kids talk to anyone the way he does?)

In all honesty, The Troika members haven’t been in office for 100 days yet. By my count, they are at about day 80, so they still have 20 more days to add to their list: 100 Days of Tragedy for Jeffco Kids.

Jeffco parents, its time to do something about it. These are our kids!

And so it begins . . .

 And so it begins. . .

With the coup on Saturday by the 3 beyond-conservative Jeffco school board members, many Jeffco employees are wondering what are they going to do on Monday?  What are their rights, who do they  report to?  The action of the 3 board members have only demonstrated they are not to be trusted. They have lied, they have repeatedly met in secret to do backroom deals, they have been mean and spiteful, they have ignored the wishes of parents.

Here's some questions to ponder:

•  When Ken Witt demands access to the district's IT systems, emails, student records & data can he get it? He would love to review every employee's email. He could identify his enemies and review their children's records. Will he have the legal right to do this? If he doesn't, who will have the guts to tell him no?
• When Witt and friends demand that only their choice of textbooks are used, can he do that?  Who is representing the students' rights. Who can tell them no?
• Can Witt and friends demand to see employee records without cause, just to harass employees, or to share this information with anyone they like? Who will stop them? 
• On Monday will Witt, Newkirk and Williams begin firing people? Will they start dismantling programs and offices that have served students and parents well for years? 
• When Witt demands a key to the Education Center or to a school can he get it? He could search through employee desks. Do you think Jeffco security people would have the guts to stop him?
• When they demand to censor communications from the district to the public can they do that? Will staff lose their jobs if they stand up to Witt & friends and say "I will not lie for you." When will Witt and Newkirk shut down the district's Twitter or Facebook page because they are afraid of open communications. Will they send out misleading information to the media?
• When Witt, Newkirk and Williams decide to turn your neighborhood school into a conservative Charter School, who will stop them?
• When Witt, Newkirk and Williams decide to bankrupt neighborhood schools to take money from the budget to start privately-supported, politically-motivated Charter Schools, is there anyone who can stop them?
• Will the district's legal representation, Kaplan & Earnst, get fired. Then who will stand up for the students and staff.
• Will staff be able to defend rights of the community against the new evil masters? Who does staff take orders from?

Honestly, the more I write this the more frightened I get.  This sounds like a story from history that no one likes to talk about.

HELP!

BTW, I am not a union member, just a concerned parent.